These notes may come in handy when you evaluate the survey studies in the human relationships option. For example Kidscape or the surveys related to interpersonal relationships.
The survey method The collection of self-report data from a target population (e.g. through interviews, questionnaires) Evaluation Strengths +If questions are standardized it is highly replicable +If sample is representative and sufficiently large, results are generalisable to its target population +A good way to determine individuals' values, beliefs and attitudes (people may be more honest if they have the chance to be anonymous) Weaknesses -The results may not always be generalized to other target populations -Can only discover relationships between factors but cannot infer cause and effect -May have some ethical issues (invasion of privacy, embarassment) -People may not be honest for values/beliefs and attitudes that are not socially desirable -The sample may not be representative because of non-response bias (those that choose not to answer the survey may have different attitudes to those that choose to answer it)
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In an earlier article I wrote about positive psychology. This is a recent article from New York Times:
A new gauge to see what's beyond happiness The article discusses Seligman's insight that happiness is not necessarily the main motivator of behavior. For many people it is more important with flow experiences; when one is fully concentrated, and merged in an activity. This is actually something Seligman discusses in the tedtalk I linked to in an earlier article. In the same article there is also a link to Csikszentmihalyi's tedtalk about flow. A few years back I read "Happiness-a history" by Darrin M. McMahon. It is a fairly unknown, but interesting book. I want to summarize it here before it will fall into oblivion. It relates the emotion of happiness. Happiness is of course cognitive and physiological states related to particular facial expressions. The cultural idea of it, however, seems to have some variability. This may be something you can argue when you evaluate how biological and cognitive factors interact in emotion.
The book only focuses on how the view on happiness has developed in the west, so eastern perspectives, such as buddhist views, have been left out. During the classical times in Greece, the individual happiness of humans was decided by the gods. Whether you would live a happy or an unhappy life depended on fate alone. However, as Solon, the lawgiver of Athens once claimed, whether you have lived a happy or an unhappy life could not be determined until you were dead. Then all the happy and unhappy events in your life could be summed up and it could be decided if you had a happy life (one can argue here that because most of us have a rather large number of days in our lives, there will be fortunate and unfortunate days, but statistically they should even themselves out. It is therefore how we utilize the opportunities in our lives that will decide our happiness.) The general consensus at the time was that happiness was fate, but there were of course the ideas of the Greek and Roman philosophers, such as Sokrates and Epicuros, that believed that happiness was both desirable and realizable. They suggested different ways of becoming happy, which usually involved cognition; such development of wisdom, character or reduction of desire. Christianity introduced a new dimension to happiness, which one may call the happiness of hope and eternal bliss. Then came the enlightenment movement that believed that science could create happiness on earth and eradicate unhappiness; and create so called utopias. Soon this materialistic view equaled happiness to material wealth. One could only be happy if one had material wealth. The enlightenment philosophers also introduced the natural rights. We now had the right to be happy which is an idea very different from fatalist view on happiness from the Roman and Greek ages. The enlightenment movement was shortly countered by the romantic movement that focused on emotion rather than rationality. Its proponents believed that one should focus on experience and strong positive and negative emotions in order to live a fulfilling life. At the second half 19th century the utilitarianism movement was strong. In regards to happiness they believed that society must achieve most happiness for the largest amount of people. Happiness was believed to be achieved through work (effort), philantropy and solidarity. The book did not say so much about the 20th and 21st centuries, but one may argue that we now may live in an age where we think that happiness is our right (the world was made for us) and that it is achieved through hedonism (pleasure, which not necessarily has to include work) and money. Maybe also that self interest, such as the individual pursuit of wealth can have beneficial side effects for society as a whole. Recent happiness studies, however, show that happiness and wealth are only strongly related for poor countries. For richer countries, happiness and wealth show a weaker correlation (even though it matters, for people in rich countries are clearly on average more happy than people in poor countries). We might come to realize that negative and positive emotions, if they are in balance, are equally important and functional in order to live a rich and fulfilling life. One cannot be happy or know how to be happy without knowing how it is to be unhappy. Or as they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch. But others may claim otherwise. I was once asked if reading the book made me happier. My answer is no;) This is an interesting article:
Mind reading technology turns thought into action In another article about the same topic I have read that mind reading technology works by first having the participants perform an activity (such as looking at pictures or articulate sounds). With the help of an fMRI scan and a computer program, the computer learns to associate certain brain patterns with certain behaviors. When the participant later is asked to perform the behavior again, the computer can guess the action based on the brain pattern with a fairly good estimation (60-90 %) This type of technology may in the future be used for lie detection, for mental training, to communicate with paralyzed patients Last week there was a conference about the consciousness in Stockholm. It included several "fringe scientists" as guest speakers but also a few respected ones. I found many of the views presented during the conference as a bit over the top (such as one speaker's claim that DNA has consciousness or Roger Penroses' application of quantum theory on consciousness). Lakhmir Chawla presented an interesting finding that the brain activity of dying patients peaks a short time after the heart has stopped beating. This may be some evidence that so called near-death-experiences are related to brain activity.
The next conference will be in Tucson in april next year should you be interested to go. The brain is a complex organ. You already know that neurons communicate with adjacent neurons through neurotransmission. Recent research, however, suggest that neurons can also communicate and synchronize their activity with neurons at a distance.
The activity in the brain is like a musical orchestra. It is rhythmic and neurons at a distance from each other can oscillate in synchronicity (at the same time). How they can synchronize their activity is still not clear, but it may be through hormones’ and neurotransmitters’ action at distance in a feedback loop. The synchronicity of neuronal activity can be a possible solution of the "binding problem". The binding problem is the question how we can perceive two qualities of an external object at the same time (for instance: a circle as yellow), when neuronal processes for figures and neuronal processes for color are localized in different areas of the brain. If neurons responsible for colors and figures can be synchronized, it should be possible to experience an object's color and dimensions at the same moment in time. The synchronicity of neurons in the brain can be investigated through EEG or MEG, which are brain scan techniques that measure the electromagnetic field of the brain. This field is produced by the electrical activity of the neurons. EEG and MEG can detect neuronal oscillations that are specific for some disorders, such as Parkinson's disease or epilepsy, but they are also able to detect oscillations related to cognitive functions such as consciousness and memory. Gamma waves, which occur within a frequency of 25-40 hertz, are by some believed to be related to consciousness. Studies on Tibetan monks have shown that experienced meditators produce the largest gamma wave oscillations observed on earth. Here is a flash that demonstrates neuronal synchrony in the brain As you can hear, the neural network seems to have some kind of rhythm. If you want to learn more about the brain, the following is a good web site, with a lot of illustrations and good explanations. You can also choose which level of the text that you want; from beginner to expert. In addition, there are also texts related to different levels of organization of the brain; from the functional to the molecular level of organization. Each text has new information, so there is a lot to read and learn. The website has an interesting section on the emergence of consciousness. The brain from top to bottom I have noticed that if I think too much (which I usually do), I sometimes get a headache, especially if I am pondering over something that is difficult to understand. It has therefore since long been my suspicion that thinking too much can cause headaches. At the first glance, this does not seem possible, because our brain lacks pain perceptors. Instead, the pain experienced from headaches is sensed by nerves on the cranium around the brain or in the meninges (a protective layer of the brain on the inside of the cranium)
These pain perceptors can be activated due to tiny blood vessel damage or the dilation of blood vessels in the brain. The blood vessel dilation or damage can be caused by overactive neural activity (such as stress). Stressful thoughts, such as when your thoughts are racing, should therefore be able to cause headaches. There are of course many other factors that can influence headaches, such as drinking too much coffee, not drinking enough water, or using the computer too much. But it is recommended that we exercise some control over our thinking, such as meditational techniques. Headaches are becoming increasing common in children. One study showed that 56 % of boys and 74 % of girls aged between 12-17 years had experienced headaches the previous month. People suffering from depression report having more headaches than others. Little is currently known about headaches and the more severe types, such as migraines. Therefore this would be an important and interesting area for further study. Oliver Sacks is a famous neurologist. He is also an eloquent and sympathethic speaker. Here is an interesting talk by him on hallucinations and the Charles Bonnet Syndrome (a type of complex hallucinations caused by visual loss). Based on his explanation, I hypothesize that the "experiencing", subjective aspects of consciousness (in philosophy it is referred to as qualia) have correlates with processes in the visual cortex and the temporal lobes.
An interesting question, which I do not yet have an answer to, is whether congenitally blind people can hallucinate color (we do know that they can hallucinate spatial relationships). For now, I suggest that they cannot hallucinate a color such as blue unless they have been able to perceive the color with their own eyes. Here is Oliver Sack's tedtalk: Oliver Sacks: What hallucination reveals about our minds Positive psychology is a new branch of psychology. It does research on how people without mental illness can make their lives more fulfilling and how talent can be nurtured. Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi are two famous proponents for this perspective. Martin Seligman became known in the 70s because of his research on learned helplessness (I might have told you about that experiment when he conditioned dogs to become helpless). Learned helplessness is a theory that can explain the often passive behavior of depressed patients. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is most famous for his flow theory; the idea that in order to be most productive/concentrated/emerged in a task, you should set yourself tasks that are on a difficulty level that is in perfect alignment with your skill. For instance, if a task is difficult and your skill is low, you will be bored and not experience flow. Conversely, if the task is too easy and your skill is high, you will not experience flow either. You will only experience flow if your skill matches the level of difficulty of the task.
Here are two tedtalks, one by Csikszenthmihalyi on flow, and one by Seligman on positive psychology. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity, fulfillment and flow Martin Seligman: Why is psychology good? I just want to make a short comment on the effect of positive emotion on performance. Positive emotion may make you feel good, but it may not always improve your performance, because it can make you feel too relaxed and therefore you will not perform at your highest. Negative emotion such as anger and fear, on the other hand, can act as effective negative reinforcers. They will make you work hard to avoid the expectation of failure. You can see that behavior in real good athletes. Because they hate to lose, they will do anything they can to avoid it. However, because negative emotion and stress arouse an individual these factors can also impair performance if there is too much negative emotion and stress. This is in line with the Yerkes-Dodgson law: The idea that ideal performance, that there is an optimal level of arousal for an optimal level of performance. In conclusion, if we want to be top performers we must be able to experience both positive and negative emotions. According to the model, there are three separate memory mechanisms:
1. Sensory store: -Information that enters our senses -Retention is brief 2. Short term store -Information from our senses that is attended enters the short term store. -Is mainly auditory. -Can be aware of 7+-2 items at a time -Has a duration of 10-30 secs. 3. Long term store: -Information that is rehearsed enters the long term store. -Has an almost limited capacity Supporting research Sensory store: -Sperling has demonstrated that the capacity of the sensory store is 12-20 items Short term and long term store: -Miller has demonstrated that the capacity of the short term store is 7+-2 information units. -Glanzer and Cunitz have demonstrated that there are separate memory stores, because of primacy and recency effect (the first and last items in memory lists are more likely to be recalled. This is because the first items are rehearsed and enters long term store and the last items are still in STM. -The case study of HM demonstrates that there are separate memory stores, because HM had an almost intact long term memory but was not able to learn new things. -Peterson & Peterson have demonstrated that the duration of STM is about 20 seconds. Evaluation +Supporting research. Research is well controlled. Brain research has corroborated that there are different memory mechanisms in the brain -There are other ways than just rehearsal to encode information in long term memory, such as through meaning (e.g. schemas) and emotion (e.g. flashbulb memories) -Ecological validity problem of the experimental research (this is not the usual way we memorize, unless we encode phone numbers, shopping lists or vocabulary) -A possible cultural bias. Studies (e.g. Cole and Scribner, 1974) show that children without schooling do not show primacy effect (do not rehearse information) |
AuthorThis is my class blog for IB Psychology. Here I will publish reflections on psychology, reviews of psychology books, recommended links, lecture notes, and information on psychology topics that are not covered by the syllabus. You are free to add comments or ask me questions. Archives
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